Chapter Twenty-Nine Imani #2
He’s so close I can see the flecks of gold in his irises and the stubborn set of his jaw that says he’s not just saying this to make me feel better. He means it. Every word.
He gives me a soft, slightly sheepish smile.
‘I’d wait forever if that’s what you wanted.
I want you, Imani. Actually want you. Not because of our fathers or because my father told me to, and definitely not because of a deal.
’ He leans in, his forehead pressed to mine.
‘I want a life with you. I don’t care how long it takes – I’ll do it your way. ’
I want to say yes. I want to yell it, scream it off the deck and let it echo all the way to London and back.
I press my hand flat over his heart and feel it hammering against my palm.
‘Yes,’ I hear myself say. My voice is soft and embarrassingly shaky, but I don’t care. ‘Yes, Asher. That’s what I want. I want you.’
The look on his face nearly does me in. He covers my hand with his own and pulls me against him until there’s nothing between us but sunshine and the dizzy rush of relief. I tip my chin up a little and he kisses me.
For one perfect moment, the world is just us.
And then, because the universe is apparently allergic to my happiness, my phone starts ringing again. I groan, but this time when I glance down, it’s not my father bombarding me with call after call, it’s Sloane, lighting up my lockscreen with a flurry of missed calls and messages.
I snatch it up immediately.
Sloane
Um? What the fuck? Are you okay?
Just saw the news… what is going on?
HELLO
ANSWER YOUR PHONE
I frown and go to message Sloane back, but then my father calls and I decide it’s time to stop delaying the inevitable.
I answer on the second ring, bracing myself. ‘Hello?’
He doesn’t waste a single breath on pleasantries. ‘Imani. Have you seen the news?’ He sounds… wrong. Panicked in a way I’ve never heard from my father before. I have no idea what’s just hit the news, but I know there can only be one thing that would ever rile him up like this.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I just woke up. Is this about the fact we’re broke?’
Asher looks at me like I’ve suddenly grown two heads, but I can’t focus on him right now. My father inhales sharply. ‘How did you—’
‘I overheard you and Mum at dinner. I know the company’s broke. I know that’s why you want me to marry Asher. It makes me sick that you’d use me for a bailout. That you and Georgios think that Asher and I are nothing but some kind of asset to be bartered.’
There’s a brief moment of silence and then my father belts out a deranged cackle.
‘You think Georgios knows about this? Our perceived capital was the only reason Georgios was even interested in the merger! Without that, this whole plan falls apart. Peregrine Airways is over. Over!’ He lets out a noise that sounds like a sob, but I can’t bring myself to feel any sympathy for him.
And that’s probably a good thing, because the next words that come out of his mouth come out in a snarl.
‘You need to come home. Today. I don’t care where you are.
The press have got wind of the collapse, the investors are in a tailspin, and unless you want to watch everything I’ve ever built burn to the ground, you need to come home and present a united front with your mother and I. ’
I stare at the horizon, at the blinding blue, and try not to let the familiar nausea crawl up my throat. ‘This isn’t my fault,’ I say. ‘It’s not my problem to fix. You did this.’
‘Don’t you dare,’ he hisses. I can picture it: the vein above his eyebrow pulsing furiously, his knuckles going pale as he grips his phone so tightly, it might just shatter.
‘Everything I’ve done has been to protect this family.
And now you’ve gone and destroyed it because you couldn’t just do one thing I asked of you. ’
I could argue. I could remind him that I’ve spent my entire life jumping through hoops, contorting myself into whatever version of ‘daughter’ would be most useful to him at the time. But I’m tired of appeasing my father.
‘Goodbye, Daddy,’ I say.
‘Imani, don’t you—’
I drop the call. The silence that follows is thick and almost suffocating. I stare down at my phone, still glowing in my hand, until the screen finally goes black. The waves crash lazily against the stilts below our deck, the world moving on as if my life hasn’t just fractured in real time.
My lungs feel tight. My heart’s still hammering from the adrenaline, from the echo of his voice in my head. The ocean’s too blue, the sun too bright, and I can’t tell if I want to scream or cry or both.
‘Imani?’
Asher’s voice is softer than I deserve right now. He’s been quiet this whole time, giving me space but not stepping away, and when I finally look up at him, I know he sees it. The exhaustion. The anger. The way my world has tilted on its axis, and I don’t know how to stand straight anymore.
He takes a tentative step towards me. ‘Are you okay?’
I inhale a shaky breath that doesn’t quite make it all the way out. ‘Honestly?’ My voice wavers. ‘No.’
Asher’s arms are around me before I can say anything else. I fold into him without hesitation. He holds me like he’s afraid I might come apart if he lets go.
I squeeze my eyes shut and whisper into his chest. ‘But I will be.’